Unbloggishly, here we read from the top down - so the current month continues here at the top!

Sorcerous and Witchy Progress - July 17th

MistressDomina had actually sold out of item drop boosters last night, but I had a reserve of them, 150 which for some reason hadn't joined the others in a single stack, to put up this morning - so MD's morning offerings were the same as yesterday evening's. It was a relatively quiet time, but she made a few useful sales.

I nearly made a costly mistake today, after checking the Last Chaos news page and finding a "Lootwheel Rebate" announcement. The prizes coming from the wheel have been improved, it seemed, to reflect lower item mall prices, and, to celebrate, "every five (5) spins will get you a '100% rebate' - and that's not all, this is unlimited." We have had a day of 100% rebates on loot wheel spins before, where every aeria point you spent was returned to you after a week or so, so I was ready to get lots of freebie stuff... but looking more closely, it seems that what they actually mean is that for every five spins you make, you will get a rebate for one spin - so, it is really just a 20% rebate.

The poor phrasing of the offer did get discussed in the shoutbox, and Giovanna_X commented that it would probably be the poor gamesages who ended up getting yelled at. I hope one or two people who were following the shoutbox then were tipped off not to spend all their aeria points and expect to get them back.

It has been a while since my level 34 specialist sorcerer JohnWellington had an outing, but for the morning session he logged in on Auzura-5, got his Elizabuff, and went to Merac to see if any quests were available - so he ended up killing twenty berserkers. Moving on to Dratan, he teleported to Prokion Temple, but before going in, headed to the nearby salamanders, since he was still one salamander tail short, for that particular quest...and the very first salamander he killed dropped the one he needed.

After that he moved into the temple, which was rather busy. The back room and corridor room were in use, so, in his knight form, he glided along into the mirror half, and ended up with the orc axemen and sergeants in a couple of small rooms there...except when a nearby rogue, lastgaylord, decided to ks while passing through, a time or two. Since the +10 armour, along with Stone Skin self-buff, give him ample physical defence, the knight form doesn't seem hugely useful there. As far as I could see the demon form, with its higher magical attack, killed more quickly, and while that was recharging, just the regular form seemed to hit harder than the knight did.

By the end of the morning, JohnWellington had earned 5.96%, 110 skill points, no more than 23 pet points from the outdoor adventures, and 56 guild points for the local branch of Discipline. He is still rather low on skill points, though, so if I do want to take him further, as my only active sorcerer, he'll need to solo-farm in Prokion for a while yet.

MistressDomina, meanwhile, had had a pretty busy morning, which continued over the lunch break, with the restock of item drop boosters selling, and someone taking a hundred chaos balls, as well as some other minor sales. This encouraged me to look in Roy's merchant mart to see if the level 85 dual swords, g5e, and +15, I'd seen yesterday being offered for 400 million were still there - and I found identical Hero' Blue Dawn Dual Swords +15 being sold by xDriv3rx for just 319 million. As previously mentioned, green-named weapons don't hit as hard as blue-named ones, but they have the advantage of a better hit rate - the five bloodseals here give 15 to attack (5 all types of physical, 6 close range, and 4 all kinds of attack) and 187 to hit rate (112 close range physical and 75 all kinds of hit rate), which is rather useful. So, Kit is set up for his future, weapon-wise.

Over on Katar-5, my archer Kaerella had a couple of quests to do, though she doesn't want to start collecting her rewards until she has finished her skill point farming. The gnolls and their red toenails were easy enough to get - the other quest involved getting "necklaces of magic power" from blood frenzies, which was easy enough, and "power necklaces" from doom slayers...who are a bit harder to find, and always have been dangerous critters, with a rather strong magic attack. Still, with a little help from her horse buffs, Kaerella survived her encounter with a group of doom slayers, and quickly returned to Merac village. From there she transferred to Dratan - and teleported out to Prokion Temple.

The back room of Prokion Temple that I check first was free, so Kaerella was able to settle in there; the rogue lOrD did turn up, and stayed standing in the room for a few minutes, but didn't try to fight at all, and finally left. Kae managed to get into a solo party almost at once; the skill exp was a lot better than in yesterday's precedence-type party, and by the end of the afternoon Kaerella had gone up another 5.38%, plus 63 guild points and just 35 pet points with the gnolls...along with a useful 219 skill points.

During the evening a "Turbo" event was due, which sounds rather exciting, but it was just a "happy hour" type deal, with 50% extra experience and skill exp. It actually started a bit earlier than expected, but I'd already logged in as my level 41 witch MistressSabina on Auzura-5, and was fighting the dire spike canines, plus the non-dire ones and the two-headed types, on the second level of Margadum Jail. With the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff the dire spike canines, being Sabina's level, gave her 2,200 skill exp...which when the event started went up to 2750, since the extra 50% was based on the regular 1,100 before the Elizabuff was put on.

It was a quite lengthy session, and MistressSabina managed to add 29.82%, which got her to the halfway point in her level, plus 2207 pet points and 144 skill points. Sabina is my only witch; she has a reasonable supply of skill points, including all her special skills, so is better off than, for example, SirKit, though it's not as great a number as my Auzura-based wizard MistressDomina still has. Still, she's probably aiming, in the long term, only at level 87 or so, which ought to mean she has all she needs.

There were other people around in Maargadum Jail, the ground floor seemed busy as I ran in, and there were a few people on level two as well. Towards the end I seemed almost to be being shadowed by a rogue called UranusQueen, who was sharing the same room, and left it to attack the three dire spike canines outside it every time I had that idea. But the time for logging out was approaching, and the game seemed to be getting a bit laggy, so I bade farewell to my comrades in the solo party, and logged out.

Over on Cariae-4, MistressDomina had kept selling my stocks of goodies; the moonstone boxes, heaven stones, large attack potions, and large defence potions all sold out, followed by, late in the evening, the last of the latest crop of item drop boosters, which meant that lashing out 319 million on those dual swords for SirKit was a minor hiccup. She even sold a few health stealers, lucky spell books, damage boosters, chaos balls, and runes of protection I. The price I was charging must be about right, for them to move relatively slowly - if something sells out within seconds of a selling session starting, the chances are that the price was a bit too low.

Death in the Early Evening - July 18th

MistressDomina got into merchant mode fairly early, for a Sunday morning, and it wasn't long before she sold out of her heaven stones; some damage boosters and a lucky spell book or two sold, as well. I'm just about out of item drop boosters on Cariae now, however, so there weren't any more of those to sell.

I logged MrChuckNorris in over on Auzura-5, mainly to check how ready he was to go soloing in the Tomb of Theos. One thing I did was use up some of his tool aids to increase his stock of green herb leaves, since his drake is sure to take plenty of damage there. He had a good supply of unidentified platinum refining stones in storage, so I opened a few of those, and got the three +1 and two +2 stones ready for him; he could do with a supply of power potions, and to borrow an accessory with 10% suction of life from another character, but otherwise he is just about ready to rumble.

My level 47 wizard on Auzura, MistressBlaze, also did some herb farming, and mined some quality stones too. She then went out to the sphinx fighters and sphinx "speer" men in Dratan's grassy south-west uplands, staying just long enough to reach level 48. She is a character without a big reserve of skill points, unlike my witch MistressSabina, but back in Dratan City I spent 327 sp to get her the first five levels of Freeze Arrow. It's not as useful as Terra Spear, but it's handy to have.

The new level meant that MistressBlaze qualified for a couple of quests; one was just a message-delivery to Rau at the Column of Magic, but the other entailed a ride down to the south of the Merac map to fight a few Salamander Ruins. That didn't take long; once she'd got her quest reward for that, her totals for the morning were 18.03%, 16 skill points, and 68 pet points.

The main afternoon session belonged to Kaerella on Katar again, who managed to get the back room in Prokion Temple on Katar-5 to herself. Before heading out, though, she'd checked in with the Master Healer skills trainer, and learned the first level of Rise Focus 2, for 110 skill points, increasing her long range physical hit rate by 44.

It didn't take Kaerella long to get that 110 sp back, and by the end of the afternoon she'd gone up by 6.21%, plus 72 guild points, and 288 skill points. It would be nice to get Kae up to a stash of 20k unused sp before she gets her experience gain unfrozen - so, just another 1,100 to go.

After the early evening food break, my sole assassin, Tairen's Memree, found a number of quests to do, in both Merac and Dratan. There were various messages and packages to do with a wedding in Merac Village, plus a trip out to Owl Village, where Memree was requested to get three orc soldier hearts. That tied in quite handily with the border guard captain's wish for Memree to kill ten highlanders - so Memree rode down the road south, before using the memory scroll to move straight to Owl Village for one reward, before getting two more rewards back near the teleporter.

The Dratan quests involved poison mists and their neighbours, the brutal deer of the desert. "Mucus of deadly poison" was required from the poison mists, and "horn of sand deer" from the deer. I decided to try to head across to the south-western uplands after that, remembering a journey across with another character some time ago.

Somehow I managed to avoid any sight of the masters of secret technique, which, given their magic attack, was useful - I did however get three dragons following me at one point. As an assassin, Memree can do the Death Motion skill, to lie on the ground apparently dead...it seemed to me that she still took damage from the dragons' fiery breath, so it was lucky her health wasn't too low at the time. When she stood up again, they came back, but Memree was able to out-run them, and then rode past the akane golems. The various types of wafe aren't aggressive, so just edging past the sphinx fighters and sphinx speer men got Memree safely to the camp, where she quickly memorised the location, before fighting a couple of sphinx fighters. A third sphinx fighter, though, unfortunately got in a couple too many lucky blows when it was nearly dead, and managed to kill her - so her "beginner" resurrection scroll has now been used up.

After getting her quest rewards, Memree finished her session in Merac, mainly with the elite frenzied berserkers, though a knight called Rebel75 insisted on fighting them too, which slowed things down a bit. There was then time for a little bit of green herb leaf and quality stone farming, before it was time to head for the Sunday Quiz. In all, Memree had added 40.68%, 68 skill points, and 572 pet points.

The Sunday Quiz itself went smoothly, after last week's drama - it was a little strange to see the question as to whether [GM]JediMike or [GM]OgreKing ran the "Old Skool Treasure Hunt", but enough of us knew that, when we used to get such an event, it was Mike who ran it, for everyone to migrate to the correct half of the room. So, MistressDomino and Kaerella left on the 22nd question, with their prizes safely in their inventories - Kae passed her heaven stones and moonstones over to MD.

I did see Ratel at the quiz, along with Liezl and Argoth, and we wished each other good luck; this time I think Ratty did make it through to the end without any disconnections, at least I didn't see any "logged out" messages. After that, well, it seemed a useful idea to move loot from various characters across to MistressDomino, so that I can do a bit of selling on Auzura for a change during the coming week. The post-Quiz lag soon settled down generally, but when MD tried to open the pages of Roy's merchant mart, that was, as usual at such a time, completely lagged out.

MistressDomina's selling spree on Cariae-4 had ended just before the quiz, with some healthy sales, so that her gold situation is pretty good - until I find the level 107 helm that Barbarienne needs, or some other expensive but vital item, anyway.

Nineteen Levels - July 19th

I didn't do any actual adventuring in the morning; what I was generally doing was preparing SirKit for his awfully big adventure in the Tomb of Theos, which was due to start after lunch. I found some platinum refining stones on Cariae, in storage, and after opening a couple of dozen, was able to give SirKit the +1 and +2 ones he'd need to get his 70/72 armour up to +15. He bought some of the 1 ap platinum blessed irises, for level 61-90 folk, and MistressDomina transferred her supply of experience boosters across - Keerella contributed some platinum adrenalin and crit potions.

Once Kit was sorted out, there was a little more loot transferring, both on Cariae and Auzura, and then MistressDomino on Auzura-5 went into merchant mode. There weren't any suitable sets of leggings for MistressDomina in Roy's merchant mart, to complete her 85/87 set, but one does need to be prepared... and MrChuckNorris will need a new sword, and new armour, before long too.

MistressDomino quickly sold her hundred chaos balls, even at a price almost 20% higher than on Cariae; heaven stones seem more expensive on Auzura than on Cariae too, so they were selling slowly but steadily at 3 million each, rather than Cariae's 2.45 million.

After lunch, however, MistressDomino had to log out, as it was time for SirKit to head for the Tomb of Theos on Cariae-4 and start his "power day". Kaerella went with him; as she was level 87, to his 67, she couldn't have a combat party or anything, but it seemed useful to have her around for the Encourage buff, and any necessary between-kill healing.

In fact, there wasn't a solo party available for Kit to join, so he did form a solo party with Kaerella; once he'd used the 24-hour platinum refining stones to make his armour +15, and increase his dual swords from +15 to +16, fighting the screaming zombies didn't generally hurt him at all, or if it did his accessory's "suction of life" took care of it, so Kaerella stayed back out of compass-map range, and Kit just ran back to get his Encourage buff renewed every twenty minutes.

Fighting the screaming zombies, using as well as the platinum blessed iris a platinum adrenalin and a crit potion, was speedy, but used a lot of experience boosters, almost a hundred an hour in fact. The first hour used 98 xpbs, getting SirKit up 403.22% from level 67 to level 71; the middle hour of the afternoon used another 97, to add 297.41%, so that level 74 was reached - and the third and last hour of the afternoon used 98 xpbs again, for a further 241.07%, taking Kit well into level 76.

It was unusual for me to be melee-fighting there, instead of using a ranged attack to pull a single screaming zombie out into the corridor, but Kit did okay, and seldom had to fight more than one zombie at a time. They did like to nibble his drake, however, and it seemed at times that I was getting through one green herb leaf for every other zombie. I'm afraid I was a little short with the assassin PerziaWolf, telling her to "go away", after she seemed to "ks" me on a couple of kills - she was in fact trying to help, and somehow her assistance didn't reduce the experience I got from the kill. She may have already been out of range of my apology, going deeper in in search of someone more friendly to assist.

After the early evening food break, the session continued. It didn't take long to reach level 77, which meant that the party could be changed to a combat-type one, and Kaerella could come forward into range. That did add a useful boost to the experience per kill, which had been a little over 54 million in just a solo party - but after two or three boosted kills, getting more like 60 million each, it seemed like time to run down to the ancient grey mummies.

The run there was easy enough, except that Kaerella, following, got stuck on a couple of corners, as she doesn't run anything like as fast as SirKit. Still, the room with the "agms" was nice and quiet, with just an elementalist sorcerer, TheApt, and his spirits, busy in one corner. As the ancient grey mummies are passive, and don't eat pets, SirKit started to fight them, while Kaerella just stood in the middle of the room, doing any necessary healing between kills, and giving the Encourage buff when it ran out. Kaerella gave the buff to a friendly archer called Abigale too, but she didn't stay all that long.

The mummies gave at least three times as much experience per kill as the zombies, as they are bosses - but they also took a long time to kill. During that first mixed hour Kit got through just 43 experience boosters, while going up 200.70%, reaching 78; that was followed by a pure mummy hour with only 26 xpbs used, for 174.12%, so that we were now in level 80. 28 more xpbs got Kit up a further 168.87%, well into level 81.

An assassin in the Valhala guild, Sp1ke, was helping a group of three night shadows - well, mainly one of them, I think the others were probably just along for the combat party bonus. The night shadow in question left as soon as he reached level 91, with a view to doing some skill point farming I think, and the other pair left soon after, so Sp1ke very cleverly and kindly spent a few minutes knocking the health of all the ancient grey mummies in the room down to around 10-20%, using some clever skill to disassociate himself from them...maybe it was just Death Motion, though a green light seemed to be involved. So, Kit happily killed them, in not much more than a tenth of the usual time, but getting the full experience, so that moved things along for me dramatically. It meant I used 41 experience boosters in the fourth hour of the evening, and went up by 211.01%, getting me to the start of level 84 - and he stayed until I was 60% of the way through that level, so that the fifth and final hour of the evening used a further 47 experience boosters, and added 210.68%, which meant that SirKit ended the evening having reached level 86.

Kit had been able to use his new green-named, five-sealed +15 level 85 dual swords once he reached level 85, so that helped to speed the final hour's kills up a bit too, with his physical offence stat rising from 1685 (including the temporary boost from the prs making the weapon +16 rather than +15) to 1991, or 1994 after he put his new stat points into strength.

So, during the afternoon SirKit had added 941.70%, plus 2902 pet points for his drake, which took it into level 36; during the evening Kit added in all 965.38%, 2 skill points, and, helped along by the "Creature Carnival" double pet experience for an hour or so, 7406 pet points. Kaerella did attack and kill one ancient grey mummy, without any pots, just to see how long it took, which was quite a while, so that boosted her experience gain, which was otherwise just from the combat party bonus - she added 9.74%, 2 skill points, and 110 pet points.

SirKit is nearly at his target level of 87 now, which would allow him to wear the new 85/87 armour set I've not yet bought... so one more "power hour" tomorrow morning ought to be enough, after which maybe he and Kaerella can have an equal party down there for an hour or two, so that they both gain a bit more experience. He certainly went through the levels very satisfactorily today, and while 476 experience boosters, plus the pots, were quite expensive, zooming up means one avoids having to buy the75/77 and 80/82 armour sets, so things do rather even out.

The Wrong Set - July 20th

SirKit's enhanced armour, with its 24-hour platinum refining stones, would be boosted up to +15 until lunchtime, so it made sense for Kit and Kaerella to head for the Tomb of Theos as soon as possible today. I had to do a little quick shopping, but then they logged in on Cariae-4, and went out to the Tomb.

SirKit and Kaerella ran straight to the ancient grey mummies, where only the knight Kaol was at work. With a combat party, for which I assume Kaol was too high, SirKit started his platinum adrenalin and crit potions, and the 61-90 platinum blessed iris, and began his "power hour" - which, using 43 experience boosters, got him into level 87 safely, with 172.81% experience gained.

So, that was the target reached, with time to spare, so I switched over to an equal party, with no expensive potions but both SirKit and Kaerella, both fighting, just using a cheap pbi...which was lucky, as it meant that there wasn't much to lose when, at ten in the morning UK time, Cariae-4 had a mass disconnection. My duo had nearly finished killing an ancient grey mummy, and suddenly were making no progress at all, though its health bar on Kaerella's display did tend to flick between the 10% it showed Kit and about 2%.

Kaerella logged out, closing the game and vanishing from Kit's sight, but trying to log in again just got the "account ID is already logged in" message, which is a bit silly as, if the account was in use, logging in on it from a different computer would kick the previous character out. But after a couple more minutes SirKit got disconnected, and then Kaerella was able to log back in, followed by Kit.

Judging by the shoutbox, where GingerBeer and Supraklr swiftly appeared, the mass disconnection only affected Cariae-4, and indeed when everyone respawned in Randol, the merchants were still there. There seemed quite a number of us re-entering the Tomb together, and running down the corridors, but the others must have been heading for the spear men and the commanders.

Still, even with that interruption SirKit added 17.05% while that pbi lasted, which got him into level 88, while Kaerella added something similar; there was just time for one more hour, which brought SirKit another 19.14% and Kaerella 19.40%...and before it ended, Kaerella too reached level 88.

The party did briefly switch to combat when a level 91 knight, Spikesknight, asked to join; I asked if he was also Sp1ke, from yesterday evening, and apparently that was his brother. He lost his connection after a mummy or three, so we went back to an equal party, so that Kae and Kit would share experience gain evenly. Kit hits for roughly 50% more than Kae, so Kae loses out rather in a combat party.

So, over the three hours, in all SirKit added 209.00%, along with 3045 pet points, while Kaerella added 38.94%, and 1867 pet points - a lower figure as her drake, SirFrancis, was only active for the last two hours. They each gained 5 skill points as well.

Reaching level 88 meant that Kaerella could now learn, for 500 skill points, the fourth level of Party Heal 2, increasing its power from 400 to 500 HP. There is another level of that skill, but it doesn't come along until Kae reaches level 148.

SirKit of course had rather more new skills available to learn, and only a limited supply of skill points. On the passive skills side, Deep Wound Training 2, to increase Kit's chance of making a critical hit, seemed useful - so that used 250 skill points. Level 6 of Two Hand Control added 20 to Kit's physical attack, for 400 sp. And the single levels of Divine Soul 2 and Improved Resist 2, for 200 sp each, improved his magical defence and evasion.

On the general skills side, there were two levels of Concentration to learn, from levels 72 and 84, for 300 sp each, to increase the chance of a skill like Stun or Snare working. The big level 70 skill, Dash, is a special long-range stun, which costs, for its initial five levels, 1450 skill points, plus 3.5 million gold - it has an 85% chance of success, which hopefully ought to be improved if the Concentration buff is on, and lasts for nine seconds, apparently.

SirKit had spent about 40% of his stash of skill points in one go, but it does improve his skills and stats quite usefully. All we need now is to afford to be able to buy him the level 85/87 knight armour set...

The afternoon was a more relaxing time, with the skills-getting, writing up the blog a bit, and chatting to a shoutbox regular, rome10, who apparently is in Barbados, so rather more used to warm weather than I am. Still, there was time to take my level 41 witch on Auzura, MistressSabina, out to Maargadum Jail's second level for a while - she added 10.02%, 49 skill points, and 824 pet points.

The evening's entertainment was set to be dominated by a series of the low-level "Mad Monster Spawns" on each server in turn's fifth subserver, starting at six o'clock, UK time, with Auzura, followed by Katar, Cariae, Sarissa, Hatzring, and Tairen every thirty minutes...my favourite kind of event, usually.

We got off to a slow start, however, with nothing happening on Auzura-5 at the scheduled time. I did visit the shoutbox to ask Giovanna_X to pass on a reminder to the GMs, and it seemed that everything was in hand - [GM]Darasuum turned up at eight minutes past, apologising, and saying that the GM who had been scheduled to run the event was having technical problems. This must have been [GM]Stratos, who took over from Darasuum - and we got plenty of waves of the usual low-level types, followed by, after the Stratos loot drop, three of the level 100 purple dragons. That seemed a bit demanding for a group of people below level 60, and mainly closer to level 30....but the evening was yet young.

On Auzura I'd taken along my level 31 archer Memree - and on Katar it was Memree again, though this time a level 31 rogue. [GM]Stratos was again in charge, and got a bit carried away, after we had disposed of the usual monsters, as he brought in some level 110 blood terrains, level 135 patriarch botises, and level 136 judge ballacks and flutons. That made it pretty dangerous for the genuine low-level types, but luckily a few high-level people had sneaked along too, and were able to deal enough damage for us to take them down.

Those events had pretty much filled their half hours, leaving little time for me to switch across, but [GM]JediMike was in charge on Cariae, and he didn't try to get us all killed, after the regular monsters we just got his usual generous amounts of loot, so my level 28 rogue there, Karella, was able to get rather more goodies than I'd managed on the previous servers.

On Sarissa, my rogue RedRyder is level 39, so was able to fight the brutal deer of the desert, elite poison mists - and even risk firing at Baal. Again [GM]JediMike was in charge, so the loot was generous at the end, and there was a good ten minutes to spare before the next server's event started.

Hatzring continues to be my lowest-level character server, with RedRyder just on level 24. Her 25/27 armour set has no upgrades at all, and her level 25 crossbow is only +1, so a fair degree of caution was needed, after the comparative invulnerability in the previous server. Still, unlike some characters, she did at least have a level 37 mount, for horse buffs, and that helped - helped the whole party she got recruited into, I think. Red did have to use a couple of small health potions when fighting an elite poison mist, but otherwise things went smoothly, and again [GM]JediMike was generous with the loot at the end.

On Tairen RedRyder is level 31, so a bit less vulnerable to attacks, unless Baal comes along, or a horde of elite goblin scouts take a dislike to her. More people were waiting for the event to begin than had been on Hatzring, but the "five minutes" announcement soon brought the numbers up. Unlike most of the other characters, Red there is a genuine contender, with her special skills maximised and 7000 skill points already stashed for future use...but there wasn't any great danger at a low-level MMS, right?

This time it was [GM]Yatou, one of our newer game masters, who was in charge; she didn't put up the usual tower, but people congregated in the usual place - and suddenly there were barren eises, dark bogles, apes, scorpionmantises, and darkmind terrains appearing right where we were. "You pillock GM" someone said, as I lay on the grass, one of many people who had been killed instantly by all that relatively high-level stuff landing on top of us. "Uhhh", she replied, as surprised as we were, I guess - and boy were we surprised! Luckily I had one of the freebie "beginner" resurrection scrolls on, so didn't lose anything except the scroll. I respawned safely back in town, reapplied horse buffs, and accepted a recall from another party member. "Not possible low lvl", nanaki was saying, and I contributed "What part of 'low level MMS' do you not understand?"

"Okk... going to modify this", the GM said, as dark bogles chased hapless low-level players across the countryside, and scorpionmantises skittered about. "It's way too hard, GM, please do", SheSaidSheWas18 commented. "That's my fault -_- " the GM said. "Do get some tips from the GMs who know how to do this", someone remarked helpfully. "As I said", the GM went on, "I got sent the wrong set"... Presumably she said that while I was back in Randol. "Lol, okay, I forgive you", the helpful person responded... I think the name was "Red Rider" or something like that...

So, the high-level stuff was wiped, and the normal sets of elite sand golems, salamanders, balrogs, and so on were unleashed in their various waves - and then [GM]Yatou gathered us off to the side, and spawned the bad stuff again. This time, with a warning and a chance to pick our targets, we managed to wear them down, in much the way that the high-level people manage to get through what seems initially a huge number of cave spirits. And then at last we got some loot - luckily a nicely generous supply, more JediMike than Stratos. I think we'd all earned it by then, it was a rather action-packed half hour.

By the time I'd recovered from all that, and got my notes sorted out, it was time to wind down for the evening anyway. MistressDomino had been on Auzura-5 doing some merchanting while the various spawns had been dealt with, and did manage to sell quite a lot. I had looked earlier for a level 85 titan sword for MrChuckNorris without any luck, hopefully something will turn up over the next few days.

Greater Experience - July 21st

Apparently it was another rather lengthy maintenance time last night - if it started at around 5:00pm in California, it must still have been going until around midnight, so our American friends lost the whole evening. We are promised "something exciting very soon" in the way of new content, which I assume is mainly the new-look, but buggy, Juno.

One fix that has been brought in apparently is that the experience given by all monsters has been raised by an average of 50% - some just have had 5% added, some as much as 400%, the product manager says, though he was unable to supply a full list yet. One example he gave is that sphinx commanders now give an extra 50% experience, though, looking at the forum shoutbox, I soon saw that some early arrivals in the "grave room" disputed that. The old figure for their experience, in a solo party, was 22,089,028, which multiplied by a pbi and an xpb would be just over 265 million, so that in a combat party you might hope to hit 300 million fairly often - will that really rise to 450 million? Not this week, anyway, despite what the developers said, as the experience per "commie" currently remains unchanged.

Another new idea is an "Attendance System", which also boosts one's experience gain. If a specific character logs on for at least half an hour a day ( standing around in town is enough, actual fighting isn't needed), on the second day they'll get an extra 3% experience, on the third day an extra 4%, on the fourth day an extra 5%, and on the fifth day an extra 10% - and if they manage to "attend" every day after that, they will continue to get that extra 10%. So, if one wants to do some serious experience-gathering, you need to plan five days in advance...while if you, on the other hand, want to farm skill points, you'd have to only do so on alternate days. I see that an "attendance check" buff counts down at the top left of the screen, so that you don't need to use a stopwatch.

I was busy downstairs, and on more mundane computer tasks, until mid-afternoon, but MistressDomino did some more useful selling on Auzura-5, including some item drop boosters that I downloaded from the "records" section of the item mall, and moved across to her. And I managed to get today's "attendance check" completed for Rage, MrChuckNorris, Kaerella, MistressBlaze, and MistressDomina on Auzura, and Barbarienne, Kaerella, Keerella, and RedRydeR on Cariae...if I want all those characters to reach and maintain the 10% boost I'm going to be busy.

It was confirmed that, despite what Xuse2005 had told us, based no doubt on what the Korean developers had told him, the experience on the sphinx commanders was unchanged - which meant that both the ancient grey mummies and the anubis spear men are now better for experience, at least this week. Those wacky devs must have forgotten to change the actual figures for that particular monster type in last night's patch.

MistressDomino came out of merchant mode finally, having taken in enough new gold for me to be able to justify spending 1,250 million gold on a pair of mage leggings being sold via Roy's merchant mart by sirLOBB4. They are +13, blue-named, and have the usual five evasion-based bloodseals, so equipping them instead of the level 71 Darkpeal pants +14 increased MistessDomina's physical defence from 2239 to 2301, and more importantly increased her evasion from 1093 to 1283 - the main reason the Antistune Red Respiration Pants +13 were so expensive is because they have a sixth seal, offering a 30% increase to Stun resistance. Very useful if one is going to be fighting the anubis spear men!

There was time for a short afternoon session, and for it my level 41 witch, MistressSabina, went to the dire spike canines on level two of Maargadum jail, over on Auzura-5. As far as I could tell the experience they gave hadn't been boosted at all - I know I'm there more to get a few more skill points, but still! Sabina added 7.66% experience, 36 skill points, and 591 pet points.

As there was going to be double pet experience from six o'clock in the evening, UK time, I moved the level 24 pale blue horse that SirPerivale had raised a while ago across to RedRackham; Peri is only level 22, while Red, on level 35, can take a horse all the way to the start of level 37 without the animal starting to get extra-hungry. Red then went down to the gnoll lancers on Auzura-5, and started to work on his new acquisition.

This left SirPerivale without a pet, so he took a drake egg out of storage, and went to Lorraine, and then on to Jajan in Dratan, to get himself a brand-new dragon hatchling. He then headed for Merac, but, since he doesn't have a red name to reduce his attack, even at level 22 he hits bare-handed for 26, so that butchers and berserkers lost their health rather rapidly. He went to Maargadum Jail, but found that a level 41 dire spike canine wore his own health down a bit. He managed to get a regular level 40 spike canine back to the usual pet-levelling spot there, close to the teleporter, but it too was able to reduce his health a bit at times - though at least the canine's health stayed pretty much full. So, it looks as if Peri will need a pet that can give him a few levels of Armour Increase, before he would be able to do any afk pet-levelling there. Or, since four pieces of his armour set are +12, and able to have an extreme stone used on them to make them +13, his armour could be upgraded a bit more if strictly necessary.

RedRackham took charge of the level 24 pale blue horse, anyway, and went straight to the gnoll lancers on Auzura-5. The four hours of double pet experience meant that, by the end of the evening, the horse was more than halfway through level 26, so that was pretty good progress.

Normally on a Wednesday I need to log out of Last Chaos on the main computer to join up with some friends elsewhere, so I decided to do something relatively low-key for the first half of the evening; my level 98 mage Keerella headed for the Tomb of Theos, but just to visit the screaming zombies, with a view to getting a few skill points, and masses of pet points for her drake Greedo. The arrangements for later fell through, however, so the session ended up as a full-length one.

Keerella went on Cariae-5, with a view to being able to help a few lower-level characters who might be there wanting to "ks" a bit - and I soon had the mage DARKEN and the archer FIASEOxxx "assisting" me, after they had both politely asked if they could. I think the archer stayed long enough to add two or three levels, using a pbi, reaching around level 47. She then asked is she could switch over to her knight - so I was soon joined by the level 65 royal knight ERAGOON instead. Things generally went easily enough, though sometimes the place got a bit crowded. ERAGOON is looking forward to reaching level 73, as he has dual swords of that level, +15, waiting.

The assassin-rogue DIGENETHY did the trick of bring back a large mob of screaming zombies, and a few infected grey mummies, and then using Death Motion to turn them loose on everyone else, but people seem to be getting wise to that sort of thing, and generally just moved away. I had a number of them around me, so used chaos nova a few times, and a flame skill - I noticed that I did need to use a medium health potion to keep Kee's health up, and Greedo's health took a bit of a hit, which shows that even with Kee's excellent armour, going into a full mob of screamies is no picnic.

A sorcerer with a pet polar bear was trying to level his pet, but it got killed twice - luckily someone had a party recall, so he didn't have to pay to get into the Tomb again after going back to town and paying a million or so to get the poor thing unsealed. He did try to "hook" it behind a pillar at the side of the corridor, but it still tended to come out fighting sometimes, if he came too far back.

Towards the end another knight, the level 47 SIRMATTY, asked to ks a bit too, and, after ERAGOON had about a third disconnection, he was my only ks-er for the final few minutes, though a rogue called DangerDagger was asking to be power-levelled at the anubis spear men. But it had been a long enough session, by then, so my thoughts were fixed firmly on logging out.

The enhanced experience from a screaming zombie, up from 4,501,453 to 8,777,055 today, meant that Keerella, even when getting just around two-thirds of the experience from each kill, added exactly 2.00% during the evening, rather more than she'd managed from her recent adventures in the Tomb of Theos. 21 skill points were gained - and no less than 6982 pet points, though that only works out at around 14% of Greedo's current level.

Claiming the Attendance Allowance - July 22nd

There was another quite substantial patch to download this morning before the game would start, so presumably there was an "unscheduled maintenance" last night. Apparently the patch was mainly to reactivate the "socket manager" NPC. Somehow that hadn't ended the double pet experience, however, which was still running when RedRackham got back to the gnoll lancers before breakfast.

Kaerella logged in on Cariae-5 for half an hour, to "sign in" for her "attendance allowance". This message greeted her: "You have attended 1 consecutive days. You can earn extra EXP according to the number of days you attended consecutively. You can earn +37657216% of extra EXP today. You can earn more extra EXP for more consecutive days you attend. You will earn 0% additional EXP depends on the attendance days." And after half an hour a new announcement came up: "Your attendance for today has been confirmed. You have attended 2 consecutive days. After passed the midnight, you have to re-login to be eligible as attendance day. You will earn 3% additional EXP depends on the attendance days." Some bits got translated better from the Korean than others, but I do love the idea of +37657216% extra experience gain...

So, it seems that, to qualify for a new day's bonus, one does have to be online for thirty minutes at the previous day's rate. RedRydeR was next up to qualify for her 3% - and, while harvesting s few green herbs, got asked the usual "how do you feed your pet?" questions by a level 9 titan, Axxxel. This somehow led on to me taking him out to the drakes, and using the old trick of giving him horse buffs and then leaving the party - his pet hopefully got some benefit, and he added a couple of levels, before Red had to leave. Keerella was next up to claim the "attendance allowance", and rode out and buffed him a couple more times before doing a little mining...though as she doesn't have any points in her special skills, she doesn't get many stones for her time.

My level 92 rogue on Auzura, Rage (or RAGE to be strictly accurate) didn't settle for any boring farming, she spent almost an hour in the Tomb of Theos on Auzura-4, just fighting some screaming zombies. The level 77 royal knight Zerxon was in the same solo party and did arrive in the Tomb and fight within range for a ew minutes, but I was in no hurry to level up... by the time lunch was due, Rage had just added 2.08%, 4 skill points and, thanks to the double pet experience, 1580 pet points. Once the first half hour was completed, the experience per screamie did increase by 3%, from 8,777,055 to 9,040,366, so the "attendance" system does seem to actually work.

After lunch, MistressDomina, to while away her 30 minutes, was looking through the Auzura merchant mart stock, and finding very little that would be suitable for MrChuckNorris when he levels up - I was starting to wonder whether titans had "b5e" armour at all. Finally I did find a pair of Antistune Pants of Thunder +15, which were blue-named for the maximum possible defence figure, and had the proper five evasion seals... they were 500 million, which I could just about afford. I was slightly tempted by b5e headgear, but it was completely unplussed, so a lot of heaven stones, lucky smelting stones, and chaos smelting stones would have had to be used to get it to +13.

The pants were passed across to Chuck, and then MD logged out, which allowed RedRackham to log back in again - by this time he'd got his pale blue horse up to halfway through level 28.

MistressBlaze, my level 48 wizard, logged in on Auzura-5 as well, making a solo party with RedRackham, and soon found that, while the experience from a level 52 Giant in Dratan was unchanged on 25,850, the experience from a level 50 Salamander Ruin in Merac had been boosted from 23,100 to 34,436, which doesn't seem logical - surely a level 52 adversary should continue to give more experience than a level 50 one? With the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff and, after 30 minutes, the extra 3%, the sallies ended up giving 70,938 experience each.

There was still one more character who needed to get her "attendance allowance", though, so MistressBlaze logged out after just adding 2.80%, 13 skill points, and 246 pet points, and MistressSabina, my level 41 witch, came on instead, and, again in a solo party with RedRackham, headed for the second floor of Maargadum Jail, and its dire spike canines.

Things went smoothly enough there, though a pair of knights did come into the main room shortly before the end, making it slightly crowded. By the time the food break was due, though, Sabina had added 15.22%, 71 skill points, and 2354 pet points. I don't think that the Jail's monsters have been significantly boosted, experience-wise, but after the first half hour Sabina did at least get her extra 3% attendance allowance.

RedRackham continued his pet-levelling over the food break, while SirDarth over on Sarissa-4 did some pet-levelling too...which was a bit risky, as there are malign forces over there that try to get pet-levellers and their pets killed. Still, Darth's level 23 drake added some useful pet experience, and was near the top of its level when he logged out. For the evening, Keerella headed back to the Cariae-5 Tomb of Theos.

The evening in the Tomb was pretty similar to yesterday evening's session; the mage DARKEN and the knight ERAGOON turned up and asked to ks a bit, but my main companion was the rogue idontcare4u2. I'd met the titan Infere in Dratan, just before teleporting to the Tomb's entrance, and at his request given him some buffs, and then we ended up in the same solo party, so when he asked if his rogue could come and ks, how could I refuse? She levelled up a few times during the evening, as did her pale blue pony.

While most people who want to ks a bit are polite and friendly, there are others who just barge in, and one such was the titan yonatan, who made a nuisance of himself not just to me, but to everyone else fighting the screaming zombies. A knight called Fronius did try to explain that he shouldn't do it, and that he might need more than his present 17 skill points if he was going to become a strong and useful character, but it didn't seem to get through.

Anyway, by the end of the evening Keerella had just added another 1.81%, and 17 skill points, plus, as the GMs hadn't thought to turn off the double pet experience, 6260 pet points. And by then RedRackham's pale blue horse was getting towards the top of level 30, as well. Let's hope that the double pet experience continues for a while yet...

Less For Your Money - July 23rd

RedRackham headed back out to the gnoll lancers this morning, though he was delayed until after breakfast when the older computer decided to switch itself off just as he was logging in. The double pet experience was still going, so the pale blue horse was soon making good progress through level 31.

Keerella stood around in town over breakfast to get her half hour of attendance sorted out; Kaerella, my cleric, then took over and did a small amount of mining, until the "You will earn 4% additional EXP depends on the attendance days" message came up. MrChuckNorris then farmed a few herbs, and Rage did the same...and then it was time for something slightly more substantial, so MistressDomina logged on, and headed for the Tomb of Theos on Auzura-5.

MistressBlaze, my level 48 wizard, joined MD there to try ks-ing a bit; RedRackham had logged out with his horse already halfway through level 31. Once MD and MB were in the Tomb, they were quickly adopted by a whole group of lower-level players, and things became pretty much a cooperative effort, with MistressDomina the main tank - though there seemed to be enough rogues to keep a zombie snared if a second one got involved. MD did end up in a combat party with BlackenPhantom, a level 87 character, who was generally fighting just within range in the zombie room itself, rather than in the corridor.

MistressDomina's armour may be b5e, like Keerella's over on Cariae, but she is ten levels lower, and generally the armour is +13 rather than Kee's +15 set, so she did take a little damage, especially when such skills as Poison Capsule got used. Generally her 10% suction of life accessory could handle it, though. There must have been another wizard somewhere in the group, but I never spotted her, as a few times Chaos Nova got used, which doubly boosts the monster's strength...it didn't help that it was level 4 rather than level 5, so that the screamies' attack power was raised 5% more than usual.

MistressDomina didn't add a huge amount of experience of course - but 13.63% was quite useful, along with 3 skill points and 3110 pet points. MistressBlaze did rather better, adding 149.80%, getting her into level 49, plus 2316 pet points.

RedRackham went back into pet-levelling action over lunch, while a couple more characters put in their half hours - which just left MistressSabina, my level 41 witch, who then logged in, and headed for the second floor of Maargadum Jail.

For most of the time, Sabina had the first room of canines to herself, but a couple of players from the morning's adventure, Ltpaulius the knight and the sorcerer godofbeasts, turned up before Sabina left - well, I think one at least of the morning's group had said they were off to get some sp there.

MistressSabina reached level 42 at last, and headed back to Randol, where a new skill was available - the first level of Burning Flame, a powerful "bleed" skill, though perhaps more designed for PvP, player versus player, than PvE, player versus the environment and its monsters. A bleed of 200 HP over ten seconds sounds useful, and future levels of the skill, which tend to crop up every ten levels Sabina gains, each add another 200. The first level only cost 10 skill points.

In all MistressSabina had added 17.56%, 76 skill points, and 2498 pet points. One thing I did notice was that the "attendance allowance" bonus, currently 4%, did apply to the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff, so that the increase of the experience from a single kill, with the Elizabuff on, was 208% rather than 204%.

RedRackham continued to take advantage of the double pet experience over the food break and into the evening - though the extra pet experience, which was supposed to only last three hours on Wednesday, finally ended at 9:30pm today, UK time. I was watching the shoutbox, and some not very bright person called EternalPainGER asked, while [GM]Darasuum was there, how long the pet experience event would last - and the GM just replied that it had been "on Wednesday". So, we'd probably have got away with it if someone else there, called Tuffsen, hadn't made a joke about it...and the GM finally understood that the extra was still running, and immediately switched it off.

We did get 50% extra experience and skill exp from 6:00pm, UK time, for four hours, so while the double pet experience was running it was a great time...though I was on Kaerella, my level 35 archer on Katar, who was fighting blue-named orcs in Prokion Temple, so not getting any pet experience there. Kaerella had quite a marathon session; when the three-hour Elizabeth's Enhancement buff ran out she teleported back to town and got it re-applied, and hurried back for a further hour.

The back room I favour was in use, so Kaerella was in the corridor room close by...and over four hours, starting half an hour before the 50% bonuses began, added 15.10%, 143 guild points for Discipline, and 665 skill points, so that Kae didn't just reach 19k as her unused sp stash, she reached 19.5k too.

RedRackham did continue his pet-levelling until close-down, which should mean that his pale blue horse gets to two-thirds of the way through level 33 tonight. There's no great hurry to get it all the way to level 37... so if RedRackham isn't online pet-levelling tomorrow morning, it will be a bit easier to get my regular line-up of characters their 30-minute "attendance allowance", two at a time.

One bad bit of news was the announcement of an "Up to 50% bonus" aeria point sale. This is usually good news, as it means that spending $50.00 gets one $75.00's worth of ap, but checking out the details, Aeria have raised the maximum possible purchase to $100.00, and you need to spend that much to get the full 50% extra. Spending $50.00 will now only get one a 40% bonus, so 7,000ap instead of 7,500...

"The Product Does Not Exist" - July 24th

The characters I'm trying to get up to the 10% "attendance allowance" logged in two by two in the morning, with most of them doing a little mining or herb-gathering; Kaerella on Auzura had a quick look in Roy's merchant mart, but there were still no decent level 85 titan swords available for MrChuckNorris.

After coffee, it was time for MistressDomina and Mistress Blaze to log in, and head again for the Tomb of Theos on Auzura-5. As before, there were plenty of other people there - and one of those confused incidents when there are some "spare" screaming zombies wandering back along the corridor did lead to MistressBlaze getting killed. Still, the skill exp restoration scrolls are on special offer at the moment, so a death doesn't cost much; MB used a res scroll she had active, so didn't lose any experience or skill points. That meant the end of MB's Elizabeth's Enhancement buff, since I didn't bother to take MistressBlaze back to Randol to get it started again.

By the time lunch was due, MistressDomina had added 13.52% and 4 skill points, plus 1453 pet points, while MistressBlaze was up by 81.43%, taking her into level 50, and 1088 pet points.

The afternoon session was pretty similar - at least one character from the morning session, the mage frixy, was still there when I got back. The place did get really crowded at times, and occasionally things would go slightly wrong - I remember a knight brought three screaming zombies back, I thought he'd done it on purpose but apparently the person he was fighting alongside had got killed, and he'd had to run for his life. MistressBlaze ended up running for her life too, and got back to safety, round the corner, with not much more than 100 health points left.

It got so crowded sometimes that MistressBlaze couldn't target the screamie MD had lured because there were so many people around it, and sometimes we would have more than one on the go, with one being fought by sheer weight of numbers, while I was able to get another and keep it mainly for myself.

Still, it was fun, and people did work together - some people did even ask before joining in, and a titan buffed me quite often. Really, it's the nearest to an old-fashioned proper adventuring party you are likely to find these days. As it was a longer session for me, by the time I left them to it, MistressDomina had added another 19.79% and 6 skill points, along with 2181 pet points, which were enough to get MD's drake into level 40. MistressBlaze, meanwhile, was up by a further 182.43%, and 1365 pet points.

The evening session was a bit quieter, as, again, Kaerella on Katar went out to Prokion Temple to earn some more skill points. My pet-leveller on that server, ColonelScarlet, supplied the solo party, while doing a little work on his level 39 drake.

The back room was free, so Kae settled in there. Before too long however a level 33 knight, KILLER999, came in, and at his request I recruited him into the party, switching it to the combat type. For a while we had another archer, LekarzPL, in the party too; she was only just high enough level to join, and got through a few health potions, while I did heal her a few times. I think she probably decided in the end that she'd get better experience, or better skill exp, fighting solo, as after levelling up she went back out into the corridor.

KILLER999 was farming skill points - though not for that character in particular, he wanted the skill points to upgrade his guild. His main character is a level 90 knight, he told me, and this character was just to get some sp, though he was finding it pretty boring.

He got to the number of sp he needed, and, with thanks, headed for town. ColonelScarlet logged out, and my level 26 rogue on Katar, RedRyder, logged in, joined Kae in a combat party, and hurried to Prokion Temple to get within range. Kaerella had recently levelled up, reaching 36, and without RedRyder close by, was getting very little in the way of experience now, and only minor amounts of skill exp, but having Red there changed all that.

Strangely, KILLER999 did have to return, as he'd managed to get himself killed before he could upgrade his guild - he needed another 15 skill points, after which he left again. I wonder what he'd encountered that could have killed him? Anyway, after slowly going through level 35, RedRyder's presence certainly speeded up Kaerella's progress, and by the time I logged out she was 30% of the way through her new level.

The total experience gain for the session for Kaerella was 40.58%, along with 434 guild points - and 528 skill points, all again helped along by a "50% extra experience and skill exp" event for the evening hours. RedRyder added 17.95%, 28 guild points and 137 skill points, from her relatively brief appearance.

As there is a master stone "tiered spender" event going on this weekend, and I need items to sell to get gold to pay for armour, just about the last thing I did tonight was buy from the web item mall a "buy one get one free" offer of the "Tiered Leveller 2.0" package, with each package containing 10 platinum blessed irises, 250 experience boosters, 10 MP stealers, 10 HP stealers, 15 large crit potions, 10 platinum adrenaline, and 15 berserker potions. The purchase itself went smoothly, and they appeared in MistressDomina's in-game record section, and I moved one package across to her inventory, expecting to see the items appear, as usual, in her inventory, with a list in the text box of what had been picked up. Instead, all I got was a message saying "The product does not exist". I took a screenshot, and, unless things have changed when I log in tomorrow, I will have to send in a "ticket" to attempt to get the items I bought. So, not the ideal way to end the day!

A Happy Resolution - July 25th

The day started with what has become the usual rota of characters spending half an hour doing a little mining or herb-gathering while they earned their day's "attendance allowance" - taking them up to the maximum experience bonus per kill, 10%. Most of the characters had the bug where the farming doesn't actually work straight away - on your own screen you are busy with your knife or hammer, but on another player's screen you are just standing there. You have to check if your implement is losing its "endurance" stat, counting down from 7200 if it's a new one, and if it isn't, without stopping what you are doing you need to sit down, and stand up again, and then all is well.

After coffee MistressDomina and MistressBlaze went out to the Tomb of Theos on Auzura-5, where quite a few familiar names were already in action. It was just as well both MD and MB had applied horse buffs, as there was a screaming zombie on the loose in the corridor when we arrived, and it attacked MB - though she managed to retreat to safety, while MD used terra spear to get its attention.

Before setting out, MistressBlaze had also taken the time to learn the level 50 wizard passive skill Magic Rod; it cost 573 skill points, but seemed a good investment as it permanently increased her attack speed (by decreasing the offence speed stat by 1.5), and increased her physical defence by 50.

The adventure went quite well after that, with me on the alert for any wandering zombies, or ones that got fixed onto one of my charges. It does seem currently that any zombie in the corridor, or at its mouth, is regarded as common property, ks-wise, unless somebody protests loudly. I kept going just long enough to get MistressDomina into level 89, going up by 20.97%, 5 skill points, and 1506 pet points, while MistressBlaze reached level 53, which meant she could use the level 57 +15 mage staff she was carrying, and level 54, adding 193.66% and 1111 pet points.

Just before logging out, MistressDomina downloaded the second package from yesterday, ready to take a screenshot if this too failed - but this time the items downloaded into her inventory without any problem. So, after lunch I was able to send off my request: " I bought the BOGO offer Tiered Leveller 2.0 packs, and both packs appeared in my in-game Records. However, when I attempted to move one pack to my character inventory, it vanished from Records - but nothing came into my inventory, and I got the message 'The product does not exist' - see screenshot", plus the link to that, and " So, can I have my Tiered Leveller 2.0 pack back, please? I successfully downloaded the other pack today." I ended with the purchase order details for the two packs. That was sent just after 1:30pm, UK time, with the automatic acknowledgement arriving at 1:34; and in the evening, when I checked my email just before the Quiz, I received a reply, timed at 6:46, telling me the items in question had now been sent.

For the afternoon, Kaerella on Katar-5 was joined by RedRyder; they made the trip out to Prokion Temple, and luckily the back room was clear. Red just stood watching while Kaerella did all the work, in the combat party, and it wasn't long before my rogue levelled up, reaching level 27, and was able to start wearing the +10 level 32 hood and boots, meaning she was well enough armoured now not to worry at all if the orcs attacked her. Another archer did come in for a while, but didn't really slow us down much... a level 21 sorcerer wanted to party, but we managed to convince him that it wasn't the right room for him.

Even though in a combat party RedRyder's share of the experience earned was pretty low, she still went up 55.57% over the course of the afternoon, earning, through her 50% experience gain freeze, 108 guild points for Discipline there. Kaerella went up by 56.59% in level 36, earning 732 guild points. And they each got a useful 518 skill points.

For the evening session, leading up to the usual Sunday Quiz at 8:30pm, UK time, MistressSabina went back to the dire spike canines on the second floor of Maargadum Jail. I only had the briefest interruptions, in the first side room there, and so, by the time I logged Sabina out, she had added 21.10% experience, 110 skill points, and 1652 pet points.

The Quiz ran smoothly for Kaerella and MistressDomino on Auzura-2; Ratel was there as well, and he did okay too, though Argoth vanished before the moonstones were reached, due to a computer problem. There weren't very many other people that made it through to the end, surprisingly, as most people got the question about where Teleporter Nadil can be found wrong. Me, I always remember the double-L of NadiL and Lust Trum, so I wasn't worried that Kae and MD, and Ratel and Liezl, were in a tiny minority. There is some sort of exploit which stops people being kicked for standing on the wrong half of the room, and I think after that question there were more exploiters left on the "X" side than people on the "O" side who had got the answer correct.

I'd noticed earlier in Maargadum Jail that we had extra skill exp running, with the Elizabuff the dire spike canines were giving comfortably more than their usual maximum of 2200 skill exp; I'm not sure if it was an unannounced return of "Sunday teatime", or had been left running from yesterday, earlier in the Tomb and Prokion I'd not been in a position to judge if the amounts were enhanced. Still, it was useful for MistressSabina, so I fitted in another 40 minutes for her in Jail, during which she added another 5.78%, 30 skill points, and 435 pet points.

RedRackham did a little more pet-levelling too, and got his horse into level 34. As he is actually on the same account as MistressDomina, I was able to check that the replacement Tiered Leveller2.0 package had arrived - in fact the GM had very kindly, to make up for the drama, sent me two packs. I downloaded them safely to Red... and then was able to buy the two master stones my purchases this weekend had qualified me for, at a single aeria point each. So they are now on the Auzura server, I just need to decide whether MistressDomina's wizard staff gets an extra plus two, or whether my archer Kaerella or my ranger Rage would benefit from a boost more.

A Change of Pace - July 26th

I had a couple of shopping trips to make today, but I still managed to get the usual characters qualified for their daily "attendance allowance" to keep their bonus experience rate of 10%. There was time for a reduced-length trip to Maargadum Jail for MistressSabina, my level 42 witch, so, in a solo party with MistressBlaze, who did some herb-farming while she "attended", Sabina headed out to Merac.

I was glad to find that the 50% extra skill exp "turbo" event still hadn't been switched off - presumably the experience was increased too, though that isn't as obvious to spot. I wasn't in the room on the second floor of the Jail long before one of MistressDomina's ks-ing companions from yesterday's visit to the Tomb of Theos, the level 37 knight nwa4f, arrived, and suggested a combat party, so Sabina ended the link-up to MistresBlaze. He mentioned that he only has about 500 skill points, so a visit or two to Jail to get some more seems pretty sensible.

Having him in the party about halved the skill exp per kill, naturally, but hopefully between us we killed twice as fast. He didn't bother to pick up any gold - in fact, I think a couple of gems I got were actually dropped by the canines he had fought. He left slightly before I did; another knight appeared, suggesting a party, but I had to say I was about finished for the morning. Sabina had added 17.02%, 63 skill points, and 539 pet points - I did have to unequip her drake fairly often when the dire spike canines, and two-headed canines, attacked the poor thing.

Over lunch RedRackham was back in action - and for most of the afternoon too, as I had that second shopping trip to make. Still, there was time for Kaerella and RedRyder on the Katar server to take a trip out together to Prokion Temple, and the corridor room - a sorcerer did trespass a bit at times, but by the end of the session Kaerella was safely in level 37, and still getting useful amounts of both experience and skill exp, thanks to being in the combat party with Red, ten levels lower. Kaerella ended with 22.22% earned, along with 281 guild points, while RedRyder got 20.46% and 41 guild points, since she gets very little more than a seventh as much experience from Kae's kills. They each got 167 new skill points, which is great for Kaerella, though not really that good for Red, though it does take her over the 3k mark.

I had been thinking of taking Kaerella and RedRydeR off to the Tomb of Theos in the evening, but there was a new player in the shoutbox, Sweptmano, a level 23 healer, wondering how she could avoid dying so much - a couple of other players helped her, the gamesage Coraan and PkingArcher, but I thought I might as well log in over on Sarissa-5 to see if there was any advice etc needed. Kaerella over there is level 28, so we made a combat party (since Spentmano needs skill exp more than the regular kind), and went out to Prokion Temple. We killed some orc soldiers, and plenty of mummies - and after a while PkingArcher rode out to the temple, she'd been busy grinding in some high-level spot before, and traded some gold and other goodies across to Sweptmano - Coraan earlier had given her some quality stones and green herb leaves for her pony.

Sweptmano now had enough money to buy the 30/32 +10 armour set, which it is useful to be able to wear from the moment one can, rather than waiting until level 31 when you get it free. So I ended up searching through Roy's merchant mart, and found the five pieces at a reasonable price - as Kaerella herself only had about 700k, Sweptmano passed across 10 million, which I thought ought to be enough. I found one knight piece and four sorcerer pieces, all put in by different people, for a total of 5,899,999 gold, which I thought was pretty good... it cost 144,000 for Collector Ryl to convert it all into healer gear. I passed the pieces across to Sweptmano, along with the nearly four million change, but she insisted on trading back two million to me for my efforts.... though I at least managed to trade across three level 26 items I'd picked up, plus three level 29 smelting stones that I'd been carrying, so that she was able to upgrade her current armour set a little.

We went back to Prokion Temple after that for about another half hour; PkingArcher (I assumed, though it might have been Coraan) had given her some sp-boosting items like melons, so she used a few of those, while we fought orc soldiers as fast as we could. One problem she had was fairly frequent disconnections, so it was just as well I was there to protect her from the orcs when that was happening. Apparently her family acquired a new telephone, and whenever it rings, it breaks the connection to the game...

Anyway, I logged out a little later than usual; Sweptmano had just logged back in from another disconnection, I don't know if she risked going back to the orcs solo. Kaerella had gone up by 41.49%, plus 221 skill points and 131 guild points for the local branch of Discipline. Sweptmano had reached level 24, and her pony had added a couple of levels I think. And over on Auzura, RedRackham, despite being ks'd a couple of times, did some good work on his pale blue horse, getting it into level 35 before the end of the evening.

Sabina, Kee, and Kae - July 27th

Today is my last fairly full day of playing until next week, as I have one of my "busy weekends" looming. The usual characters were logged in to claim their Attendance Allowance - though we hit a slight problem when the Cariae server, or at least the busy subserver, number five, had one of its regular crashes just after ten in the morning, UK time. Barbarienne was just coming to the end of her half hour, but luckily by the time I noticed the "disconnected" pop-up, the server was back on, and she was able to log straight back in again. I was glad to see that she didn't have to start her 30 minutes from scratch again, in around 10 more minutes she was finished, with her 10% experience bonus secured for another day.

MistressSabina logged on after coffee for another trip to Maargadum Jail's second floor. A level 33 knight called versku, I think from Finland, wanted to make a party, so I went along with that; RedRackham joined once the last character had finished their half hour, while doing some more pet-levelling. He did get ks'd a couple of times, but kept going.

The 50% bonus to skill exp and experience had finally been switched off, sadly, but MistressSabina ended up adding 16.39%, 62 skill points, and 1030 pet points before it was time to log out for lunch. RedRackham was able to continue to give versku a solo party until later.

It's interesting how many people MistressSabina sees in Maargadum Jail are people that MistressDomina has allowed to "help" her in the Tomb of Theos - it's good that they are getting some skill points, as well as trying to go up a level or two the quick way.

For the afternoon, my level 98 mage Keerella went to the Tomb of Theos on Cariae-5, with a view to getting a few more skill points, and pet points. The place was fairly quiet, with just the level 47 mage Angelicity and level 56 titan XxxTHORxxX there. Thor didn't stay around very long, but Angelicity had a good time assisting me with my kills, and went up by two levels. She was emboldened by that so much that she tried a screaming zombie of her own - but unfortunately there were three rogues around, and they had lured back assorted zombies and weren't keeping them under control, so that, just as she finally had nearly killed her target, another zombie killed her.

This annoyed a level 76 specialist sorcerer, dragonking23, so much that, after warning me, in his well-armoured knight-type form he brought a whole mob of zombies back and, he told me afterwards, did manage to kill off the rogues.

I did pay a brief visit to the ancient grey mummy and anubis spear man rooms, just to see how things were going there. The "agm" room was a lot busier than usual, though there were still a few of them spare. They give Keerella 3300 skill exp, compared to the 990 from a screamie, but do take a while to kill. The anubis spear man room had its ration of two people fighting the spear men, which until the sphinx commanders get their promised experience boost give more experience per kill than anything else in the Tomb. I guess if Barbarienne did want to have a session fighting spear men, she'd need to go deeper in and find a convenient bit of corridor - with Keerella around to deal with any pesky sphinx fighters.

Keerella went back to the screamies after that, and by the end of the session was up by 1.56%, 15 skill points, and 2380 pet points. Angelicity and dragonking23 have been added to Kee's list of friends, after I removed a couple of old names that didn't ring any bells with me now.

I probably should have waited until the evening for Keerella's Tomb session, as there was a "pet event" giving double experience then. As it was, Kaerella on Katar, accompanied by RedRyder there, was in Prokion Temple, and as the orc sergeants and orc axemen are blue to Kaerella, there was no pet experience to be had. The back room was in use, so I was in the corridor room which, while slightly more sparsely populated, does probably have a better ratio of sergeants to axemen.

The session lasted for the whole length of the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff, with RedRyder reaching level 28. By the end, Kaerella had gone up by 55.03% and 819 guild points, while RedRyder had added 46.52% and 119 guild points. And they had each gained 384 skill points, taking Kaerella comfortably over the 21k mark for her unused sp stash.

Watching the forum shoutbox, there was a bit of drama, quickly stifled when two or three game masters came visiting, with their ability to remove posts nigh-on instantaneously. One of the shoutbox regulars, Deathowl, had managed to get his account banned, and had made a new similar one to complain. I don't know the details, but it seems that he had been unwise enough to send a message to a GM about one of the longest-serving and hardest-working gamesages, a shoutbox regular, an in-game event regular, and the provider of lots of GS-type in-game events, claiming she was "corrupt". And the GM had come down hard. It's a shame, as Deathowl was sensible and helpful in the shoutbox, but making that sort of allegation is obviously not a good idea. Even if personally I do find that particular GS rather creepy...

RedRackham logged in as soon as RedRyder logged out, so I managed to get some use out of the double pet experience, getting that pale blue horse past the halfway mark in level 35. There was, sadly, no chance of the event being left running for a day or two, with its official end time being followed fairly closely by the weekly downtime for server maintenance.

Will the week's new patch bring some bug fixes, or perhaps some way to get round the problems that socketed items are causing? Will it bring the revamped map for Juno? Will there be some further changes to monster experience, particularly concerning sphinx commanders? Only time, and the next entry in the "patch notes" forum thread, will tell.

Two Kaerellas, and Two Reds - July 28th

The overnight patch was a bit of a non-event, this week. A fix to the inability to meld covers onto socketed gear is "currently being tested", and a fix for an issue with Mondshine's raids is "currently being worked on". The "One More Card" has been added to the item mall, for 99 ap giving you a chance to add an extra socket to an item - not a very high chance, apparently. "No new content updates at this time", the patch notes end sadly.

So, there wasn't any noticeable patch to download before my assorted characters could start putting in their half-hour appearances to maintain their 10% "attendance allowance" experience bonus. Various stones and herbs were mined and gathered, and after the older computer had played host to three characters off the list, RedRackham logged on there, and headed for Merac, while the other characters took turns on the newer computer.

The double pet experience had continued at least an hour and a half after its scheduled ending time last night, which was useful for RedRackham - it probably ran until the maintenance downtime began, in fact. Things were back to normal today, though. Still, RedRackham got his horse into level 36 by lunchtime. And before she logged out as my final "attender", MistressSabina used a few of her tokens on the Lacarette wheel. While she did get a couple of potions of haste, she did manage to get five heaven stones from one spin, which can't be bad.

The afternoon session, however, was a full-length one, lasting just about the whole three hours of the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff. This should be my Katar Kaerella's final session with the orc sergeants and orc axemen, as it took her into level 38. In her combat party with RedRyder, on level 28, she was still getting some useful experience and skill exp, but taking Red up further in such a teaming wouldn't do her any favours, she'll need to concentrate on getting her own skill points if she is going to get anywhere.

The back room was, as so often, busy, but the corridor room was free, thankfully, though, judging by the gold left on the floor, only recently vacated. There was a slightly unpleasant mage called UnespectedMage who came along at one point, competed for the kills, and started up with the "don't ks" refrain when I didn't let her have all of them to herself, but after a little bad language she departed. The archer DouceColombe took up position close by towards the end, I don't think she speaks much English but we've exchanged greetings a few times over recent days there.

By the end, Kaerella had added 39.22% and 621 guild points, while RedRyder was up by 32.00% and 92 guild points...and they'd each gained 301 skill points. That leaves Red almost halfway through level 28.

The evening session was just a half-length one. There was a high-level "Mad Monster Spawn" on Auzura scheduled to start at 6:30pm, UK time, but I didn't feel particularly in the mood for that, as a level 92 rogue would have a fairly risky time there - and I'm glad I didn't, as soon after 6:30 people appeared in the forum shoutbox wondering why it hadn't started. I assume it did start eventually, when the GMs woke up from what would have been a pre-lunch snooze in their time zone, but it must have got rolling at least a quarter of an hour late.

What I did do for a couple of hours was take my level 88 cleric Kaerella and my level 87 phoenix ranger RedRydeR out in a combat party to the Tomb of Theos on Cariae-4, just, unboosted, to fight the screaming zombies, and maybe get some pet experience and gold. They may both have good level 85 +15 weapons, of their different classes, but Red damaged the screamies twice as fast as Kae did, and levelled up during the session, adding 33.65%, and 1686 pet points. Kae added just 14.38%, and 1099 pet points - and they each gained 5 skill points.

The Tomb was pretty quiet, at least at its start; a junior-level knight did appear once, but didn't stay around. There was another team of two players who appeared after a while, and, curiously, they too were a ranger and a cleric, though not as high level, so had to adopt a more cautious approach. With Kae and Red, if an extra zombie spawned nearby, Kaerella would attack it and take it for her own - then when Red finished the zombie they'd previously been fighting, he'd switch too. Kae didn't have to do any healing, though her Encourage buff helped Red a little.

Once Kaerella and RedRydeR had logged out, I just had time to put RedRackham back to work pet-levelling on a gnoll lancer in Merac - and he got the pale blue horse up past about 40% of level 36, so it won't be long before it is ready to be mounted.

Good and Bad News - July 29th

For actual proper playing, I was always only going to have an active evening session today, but I could at least get the assorted characters their thirty minutes each of playing time during the morning. MistressDomina started off on the older computer, before letting RedRackham take over there for some pet-levelling, and the newer computer worked its way through the others.

In the afternoon, I let ColonelScarlet on Katar-4 do some pet-levelling of his level 39 pink drake, while RedRackham continued his work on Auzura-4 - and sending ColonelScarlet out was a bit of a mistake, it turned out, because when I checked on him, some evil little scrote, probably serina's local character (the mage of that name, last encountered on July 1st doing exactly the same thing, is on Sarissa), had lured a big group of aggressive gnoll soldiers onto the Colonel. Sadly the drake was already dead, though ColonelScarlet's health was keeping up pretty well... a trip back to Randol was needed to unseal the drake, costing 404,586 gold - almost all the gold he had.

RedRackham had a successful time, though, and got his pale blue horse to level 37; he was also carrying a level 39 drake, so switched over to working on that for the rest of the afternoon. Since I couldn't keep a close watch, ColonelScarlet logged out - and SirGalahad over on Tairen logged on instead. He had a level 8 dragon hatchling, which could do with a bit of a boost; Gal doesn't have a red name though, so the gnoll lancers weren't for him, instead he needed to head for a death mask lancer on level five of Maargadum Jail on Tairen-4. Before he logged out, he got the hatchling up to level 10.

The computer had to be restarted, the antivirus decided, so that ended SirGalahad's session. After things were sorted out, I decided to log in Barbarienne on Katar, a level 10 healer, to check something out... and that was, how teaming up a level 10 character with Kaerella, on level 38, would work, in Prokion Temple, as someone in the shoutbox had recommended that sort of party. While having Kae fight an orc sergeant within range of where Barb was standing did give some useful skill experience, it seemed a bit risky - and, although Barb of course was "capped", she did start to add experience quite quickly, and I'd not want her to go above level ten without bringing the Guardian system into things.

Kaerella did add 0.75% and 13 guild points, plus 10 skill points, but generally Prokion Temple is probably a bit too crowded for one to be able to rely on fighting orc sergeants within range of the lobby. Still, it was an interesting experiment.

My mage Keerella logged in on Cariae-5 next, and made a solo party with RedRackham, since he does exist on both Cariae and Auzura; he headed out to the gnoll lancers to work on his level 41 drake. Kee headed for the Tomb of Theos; after a couple of screaming zombies, I did check out the ancient grey mummy room, but it seemed rather crowded, and, while the skill exp is, as previously mentioned, good there, this time it seemed to take even longer to kill a mummy, and Kee took rather a lot of damage while doing so.

So, I returned to the screaming zombies, which die comparatively quickly. From six to eight o'clock, UK time, we actually had double experience and skill exp, which was great, recently it has always just been 50% extra. The place was fairly busy, and I got a few requests from people who wanted to "ks", to get a bit of experience by attacking the zombie that was focussed on me. I had a couple of archers, a specialist sorcerer and a rogue at one stage; the archer PablossPL stayed the longest, and used a platinum blessed iris or two, so levelled up a few times. I always warn people not to go too far forward, as the screaming zombies can respawn in the first few yards of the corridor, not just in the main room, but people always seem to end up in the dangerous area.

Angelicity was there for a while, soloing the zombies, but the mage Materia had quite a long and successful session, going from level 36 to 42 she told me - she was a phoenix character, her main is level 106, and she had not just +15 armour, but a large polar bear pet, which gave a good stun to use... she had a fairly large jaguar pet too, though she wasn't as successful using that.

There was a general mass disconnection on Cariae-5 at around 8:30, UK time - a rather unusual one in that it was pretty much instantaneous, rather than leaving characters standing around for a minute or two before finally getting the bad news. Logging back in was trouble-free too, no "the account is already in use" delays - very strange. Some people apparently found that they were glitched and couldn't join a party after they logged back in, as they were "already in one"... Kee had a blank second party member showing, but when RedRackham logged back in (without a blank second party member) he didn't reappear there, the blank stayed blanked out. Kee hit the "leave party" option, and then they were able to remake the solo party, after Red registered for it.

Angelicity went off to farm some skill exp rather than return, but PablossPL got back to the Tomb even quicker than Kee did, and we continued for another hour or so. By the end, Keerella had added 3.20%, 29 skill points, and 3092 pet points, which shows it was quite a long session. PablossPL had tried to give Keerella a reward for helping her, but, while I'm happy to get a few health pots or level six minerals, what she tried to trade to me was 95 level 12 magical attack minerals, which seemed to me to be way over the top.

Checking my email, I had some good news to finish the day with - the master stones I'd qualified for had been safely applied to MistressDomina's staff, over on Auzura. Her g5 level 85 staff is now +19, and has, for its attack stats, a quick look showed me, 545 + 1308 +50, compared to Keerella's +15 one which gives 545 + 879 +50 - MD's magical attack stat is now 2427, compared to Kee's 2059. I looked at some items that Roy's merchant mart has for sale, and MistressDomina's level 85 staff is actually slightly better than a level 109 +14 one, which gives 755 + 1120... though a level 109 +15 staff would come out ahead.

Cariae's RedRackham continued to level his drake, getting it almost halfway through level 41, though it gets through quality stones at an alarming rate now. When Red was heading back to the gnoll lancers after the disconnection, a titan called Daygoro asked him about ks-ing, which for a pet-leveller means someone deliberately coming along and killing your target monster, so that your character just stands around doing nothing until you return to your keyboard, which can be hours later. "Someone is going around in Merac killing our pet-levellers and their mobs", he reported, and went on to say that for about the last two weeks someone has been going around Merac three or four times a day, doing this. I'd thought that Cariae was a pretty safe server for pet-levellers, but apparently not... Daygoro is eager to find out who is doing it; I do hope that the evil serina hasn't trained up a character on Cariae to join her others, that would be bad news.

Another Cancelled Event - July 30th

Once again, my time during the day was generally taken up with preparing for the weekend, so any proper playing had to be reserved for the evening. Still, the usual rota of characters put in their half hours online to maintain their attendance bonus, and RedRackham did some useful pet-levelling work with his level 39 drake.

RedRackham does get through the quality stones rather quickly now, however, so his supplies needed replenishing. So, MrChuckNorris did some stone mining with tool aids, and then rode down to where Red was fighting his gnoll lancer, and traded across 800 quality stones, as well as his supplies of imperfect and flawed stones. Such altruism may be rewarded, as I noticed that Chuck's own drake was then a level behind Red's, so he would benefit from an exchange of drakes at some point.

The drake reached level 40 just before the early evening food break, with the usual vertical light show. Once the break was over, though, it was time for RedRackham to log out and MistressDomina to log in, on Auzura-5, and, accompanied by my junior wizard MistressBlaze, head for the Tomb of Theos.

It was a fun session, and a lengthy one. I had been toying with the idea of going to the scheduled event after a couple of hours in the Tomb - it was to be a "players versus GMs" thing in the arena, so I thought perhaps MistressSabina with her witchy skills might be useful. However, it was cancelled on all servers, and we were given a few hours of 75% extra experience instead. bad news for skill point farmers, but useful for those of us in the Tomb. It seems that quite a few events have been cancelled at the last minute in recent weeks, the GMs must be rather busy.

As usual I had plenty of ks-ers, in fact the corridor eventually became a bit like a tube station in the rush hour, only with more zombies. There were a couple of occasions when a higher-level player lured a big group of zombies back on us - no problem for MistressDomina, but something MistressBlaze had to watch carefully for. And sometimes people inadvertently lured multiple zombies, or had to run for their lives leaving a thwarted zombie to wander back.

MistressBlaze did survive these problems, though there were occasions when her health did go down alarmingly. Once when some loose zombies were around she ran back towards safety, but one of the screaming zombies wasn't easily shaken off, it didn't just follow her around the corner, it went right up the steps as far as the teleporter NPC, and only at the very far end, round another corner, was MB safe. MistressDomina hurried back to deal with it; a couple of people did teleport in during the fight, it must have been a bit of a shock to see a screaming zombie there.

MistressDomina had a combat party a couple of times. One of them didn't last long... the other player changed it to a "fellowship", which apparently let her see what accessories MD was using (at least she mentioned the suction of life), and her weapon too, as she admired the staff's +19 stat. MD also let a level 31 sorcerer into an equal party for a while, after he'd pleaded continuously, as he was desperate to get to level 32 and learn the new specialist skills...she even gave him the 100,000 gold he asked for, although he'd already had some gold from having a share in the loot MD had picked up.

Anyway, MistressDomina tried to keep an eye on everything, using the terra spear attack to get the attention of wandering screaming zombies, or ones that were attacking junior members of the group. Things will slow down once MD hits 90, but, in level 89, she went up 46.24% over the course of the session without using any potions or boosters, plus 11 skill points and 3285 pet points. She picked up three heaven stones, too. MistressBlaze went up by 277.07%, taking her past the 90% mark in level 56; she didn't earn any skill points, but, although her drake wasn't equipped for all the time, it added 1316 pet points.

Back in Randol, I traded across my best level 60/62 mage armour set to MistressBlaze, though she can't wear the boots and headgear until she reaches level 57. Perhaps she can visit the sphinx types for a change to get the necessary few percent. She isn't a character with a huge amount of stashed skill points, but it will be useful to get her to at least a moderately medium-high level.

After that, RedRackham logged back on, and went back to a gnoll lancer, on Auzura-4, where another knight I've seen a few times there recently, ecinuj2, was already hard at work. Hopefully I managed enough work today to have a bit more playing time tomorrow, we will have to see how things go.

A New Addition - July 31st

The various characters logged on for their 30 minutes each of playing time during the morning, either standing around in Randol if I was having breakfast or out doing some quick shopping, or managing a little herb gathering or stone mining. MistressBlaze, however, used her half hour to go out to the sphinx fighters and sphinx "speer" men - and managed to get the experience she needed to reach level 57, allowing her to wear the complete 60/62 armour set.

The half hour passed easily enough; a rogue was busy on the elite sphinx speer man, taking ages to kill it each time, but otherwise the place was quiet. By the time the countdown ended, maintaining MB's 10% experience bonus for another day, MistressBlaze had gone up by 8.04%, 10 skill points, and 226 pet points. She had also opened a pandora's box, getting five level twelve physical defence minerals as her reward.

There was also time for MistressSabina to head out to Maargadum Jail before lunch; like MistressBlaze, she had RedRackham providing her solo party, as he did a little more pet-levelling work on his level 40 drake. The place was pretty busy, but there was just about room for MistressBlaze too. It wasn't a hugely long session, but Sabina did manage to add 10.02%, 49 skill points, and 607 pet points.

There was a special offer on the three relatively new kinds of pet this weekend, a "tiered spender" event, which meant that if one spent 2,000 aeria points, one got a free polar bear pet. Spend another 2,000 and you'd get a jaguar too, and take your total up to 6,000 and they'd throw in a brand-new panda pet as well. I decided that I didn't really want to have three new pets to train and level up, but a polar bear was rather tempting... so I stocked up on "buy one get one for 1 ap" platinum blessed irises and platinum super skill pills, and got MistressDomina a baby "poly".

MistressDomina traded the polar bear across to Kaerella, my Auzura archer, and, in a combat party, they went off to the Tomb of Theos on Auzura-5. I let myself be persuaded to take some level 31-33 people into the party, so it went to the equal type, but that didn't effect the experience for the poly, and, with numerous assistants, MD set to work luring the screaming zombies and killing them.

There were some other higher-level people around, including a couple of night shadows, who generally let other people "ks" too, and everything went smoothly most of the time, even if there was one sorcerer who tended to lure a zombie he couldn't deal with...sometimes MD had to pull one or two other zombies off the lower-levels.

My session ended slightly prematurely, when a wandering screaming zombie decided to attack the poor little poly - but back in town it only cost 122,352 gold to "unseal" the little chap. He had gone from level 1 to level 7 in the session, a total of 605.16%, so that got him, generally, off to a good start.

MistressDomina went up 14.06%, and her drake gained 2033 pet points, while Kaerella added 14.13%, with the fact that the party had been "combat" style briefly outweighed by her being one level lower than MD - and they each got a single skill point. After they logged out, RedRackham went back into pet-levelling action over a rather extended food break, which included some final preparations for tomorrow.

The campaign continued for the evening session, with some familiar supporters in the Auzura-5 Tomb of Theos, and some new ones. By the end, the polar bear had reached level 12, adding 496.71%. This time we were able to keep to the combat party throughout, so Kaerella added just 6.13%, while MistressDomina earned 32.13% - not the sort of increase she'll be able to manage once level 90 is reached, unless she starts using boosters. MD's drake gained 2671 pet points... and they each added 5 skill points.

The "Creature Carnival" event was just starting when MD and Kae logged out, so I quickly logged RedRackham in for some more pet-levelling; any double pet experience is useful, particularly when the drake is getting hungry. I'm not sure if the double pet experience applies to polar bears, but hopefully at some point there will be an opportunity to find out. The poly is a cute little fellow - he can be changed into a larger bear when level 50 is reached, but it depends on which skills one wants it to use. That is something I'll need to look into, but at least he is a fun companion to show off in town. The panda, the newest addition to the Last Chaos menagerie, looks suspiciously similar, except for the fur colours, and someone was saying that the skills are remarkably similar too!